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Time is not a line but a dimension, she wrote inCats Eye.
Margaret Atwood in 1986, the year after she releasedThe Handmaid’s Tale.
You dont look back along time but down through it, like water.
Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing.
When they first proposed it, I said, Oh, that would be so boring.
Courtesy of Doubleday
Its not: I went for a walk.
I had a lovely dinner.
Heres a picture of my food.
Atwood in 1972, posing with her second novel,Surfacing.
This was before the internet, so how was I going to get the paper galleys to correct them?
Atwood in 1972, posing with her second novel,Surfacing.
Theres a lot about farm life in my bookbecause what mostly happens on farms is catastrophe, she says.
Photo: Ruven Afanador
What was it like to go through the decades and join those narrative arcs?
Atwood responds with her own question: How old are you?
Youre not there yetyou probably think youre old, right?
Youre not, dont worry, Atwood says.
Well, Anna, it changes over time.
Youll hear this described by a lot of people.
What you find hardest to remember are the middle years.
When youre older, you could catch and remember the early years quite well.
You may have forgotten about them when you were 31, because youre very occupied with your immediate happenings.
And you know how its likely to end.
I have a different perspective now.
What happened, why, to who.
And nows my chance to get back at those bad people.
She laughed, cried, surprised herself, and sweat through writing the memoir.
Despite the grimly oracle-like contents of her novels, Atwood describes herself as a very cheerful person.
Which surprises a lot of people, she adds.
So I would rather write about silly things.
Stuff we did that, I suppose, you could call capers, or fun-raisers!
Its short, succinct, funny, interesting.
High points, low points, she says.
There was a lot of clothing picked up for me, she says.
Id say, Id never wear that.
That would never work.
I tried the pink and it worked.
We discuss Trumps current fixation with making Canada the 51st state.
So hes welcome to try.
We have this same, sad framework again: instead of fantasy, its reality.
I dont think there will be outfits, but the rest of it…its too creepy.
Good luck with the rest ofyour68 years, she tells me.
